A rogue, a cad… immortalised on the silver
screen in countless iconic roles, including the brilliant Addison DeWitt in All
About Eve (for which he won an Academy Award), married
to a Gabor, the voice of Shere Khan, Batman’s Mr. Freeze… George Sanders was a
true star.
Russian-born but raised in Britain and of
aristocratic stock, Sanders and his family fled to Britain in 1917. He began
his career on the stage in musicals, after his friend Greer Garson suggested he
take up acting. Prior to that he had run a tobacco plantation and worked in
advertising. His first recording, Regency Rakes,
was from the 1934 production of Noel Coward’s Conversation
Piece.
He appeared in several British movies
during the 30s, but it was when 20th Century Fox cast him as the villain in Lloyds
of London that sanders started to attract
attention. Lloyds of London was a big hit and
Fox put Sanders under a seven-year contract. His first leading role came the
next year, in Lancer Spy. Next he was cast as The
Saint in a series of movies, and began a successful
association with Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in both Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent. When RKO,
the producers of The Saint series fell out with
author Leslie Charteris, they created the role of The Falcon for Sanders.
He bore a striking resemblance to his elder
brother, Tom Conway (real name Thomas Charles Sanders), and the latter was
often cast in Sanders-esque roles. Conway took over the role of The Falcon from his George, the two of them appearing together in that film.
The only other time they appeared together on screen was in Death of a
Scoundrel (1956), in which they also played
brothers. Tom Conway died, of alcoholism, in 1967. His career never reached the
same heights as his brother, but like him he had also worked for Disney,
voicing two minor characters in 101 Dalmatians.
Released in 1958, The George Sanders
Touch is not the worst singing actor album you’ll
hear, but it is still awful. The lush orchestrations – by Nick Perito (who was
closely associated with Perry Como for much of his career) and Don Costa (best
known for his work with Sinatra and Paul Anka) – are gorgeous, but Georgie boy
is out of his depth. His bass-baritone croon is ok, and he just about gets away
with it on Try A Little Tenderness, but his
range is severely limited, as you can hear for yourself on the dreadfully
out-of-tune As Time Goes By. It’s all downhill
from there. He murders September Song, one of my
favourite songs, with a ridiculous (and, frankly, obscene) spoken word intro
that lifts him in to the stratosphere that will later be occupied by Barbara
Cartland. Rather appositely he performs If You Were the Only Girl In The
World, massacred by Dame Babs herself on her Album
of Love Songs. The song Such Is My Love, was
composed by Sanders himself.
In later life Saunders suffered from
dementia. He became deeply depressed and, when he found that he could no longer
play his grand piano, he dragged it outside and smashed it with an axe. On 23
April 1972, he checked into a hotel in , a coastal town near
Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into cardiac arrest
after swallowing the contents of five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal. He
left behind three suicide notes, one of which read:
Dear World, I am leaving because I am
bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in
this sweet cesspool. Good luck.
Sanders’ last role was in the low-budget
British horror movie Psychomania (released in
the US as The Death Wheelers), which hit cinemas
in 1973.
Here’s George crooning a couple of tunes.
Enjoy!
Download September HERE
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